Moin are subtly but brilliantly reinventing rock music. Indebted to 1980s and ’90s post-hardcore, the London-based trio toys with specific formulas and makes them sound like uncanny updates of a bygone era. The tracks on their debut album, Moot!, began with improvised sessions by chameleonic drummer Valentina Magaletti. From there, Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead—the duo who made cratering post-industrial music as Raime—chose passages to build songs around. The result was post-hardcore approached with a dance-music framework—vocal samples included. In a time when Numero Group is hosting a festival celebrating seminal rock bands from yesteryear, Moin are a welcome reminder that there’s still room to build on old foundations.
If Moot! was a successful proof of concept, then Moin’s second album, Paste, is a confident assertion of their style. The songs are tighter and groovier, and feature creative flourishes that elevate every mood. “Forgetting Is Like Syrup,” for example, stands out for its pitch-shifted vocal sample. Recalling DJ Screw’s chopped-and-screwed technique, its warped spoken word is surprisingly desolate, and slots nicely alongside the song’s crumbling electronics and worming guitar melodies. On the other end of the spectrum is “In a Tizzy,” which uses sparse guitar scrapes, tape effects, and a synth choir to conjure an intimate atmosphere that feels like watching home movies. Much like slowcore band Forty Nine Hudson’s “A Certain Code,” it incorporates field recordings to reveal the communal joys bubbling underneath the dreariness and angst.
That Moin are so reminiscent of other artists is part of their appeal. They encourage revisiting their forebears—not because they’re hopelessly mired in nostalgia, but because their songs illuminate aspects of classic bands that may go unappreciated. A track like “Hung Up” is a callback to Slint, but its lockstep instrumentation highlights the way Spiderland’s comparatively loose arrangements bolster that album’s prosaic, contemplative nature; Moin, in contrast, want something more direct and bracing. (The vocals on “Hung Up,” meanwhile, come from a decades-old recording by novelist Lynne Tillman.) Elsewhere on Paste, tracks lift from ’80s spoken word compilations of Californian poets. In sampling a different kind of underground artist, they ask for a deeper consideration of talk-singing in rock and punk, as though to demonstrate that it’s not just something that appears in No Trend or Moss Icon tracks—it has roots that are intertwined with other mediums too.
Alongside their original material, Moin have released mixtapes that juxtapose punk tracks from the past 40 years. These cassettes give insight into why the genre excites them. The piercing guitar tones in Lifetime’s “It’s Not Funny Anymore”—one of many songs on Flush—are triumphant, and “Life Choices” sounds like Moin’s attempt at capturing that same electrifying thrill. Paste is delightfully procedural in this way: Moin study the history of punk music—the hypnotic Ramones-like riff on Friction’s “Pistol,” the texture of the Hated’s “Hey Mister,” the sneering vocal delivery of Gordons’ “Spik and Span”—and build songs from their favorite elements. “Melon,” one of the album’s most exhilarating tracks, is all melodic guitar fuzz and a sample that cuts through the noise. “You don’t know me, but I know you/I sure as fuck know you,” goes its most caustic line. It only hits so hard because Moin’s songwriting is so skeletal.
The small tweaks that Moin make to the post-hardcore tradition consistently impress. “Yep Yep” features brooding guitar and what sounds like a pneumatic drill, but the real highlight is the intersection of the instrumentation and the vocal samples, one of which sounds like terrified shrieks from a low-budget horror film. Every component of the song takes on a percussive aspect, and it’s all held together by Magaletti’s unwavering beat. Crucially, Magaletti is the only member credited on a specific instrument. This indicates the broader role that Andrews and Halstead assume, and the way their songs are approached with a dance producer’s mindset. It’s why “Sink” is such a mesmerizing closer: Its sludgy guitar riffs repeat as if looping, and are self-sufficient enough to keep you in their grip—no cathartic quiet-loud dynamics or dramatic tempo changes needed. Miraculously, Moin sound like every band they have been influenced by while remaining completely inimitable.
